China currently produces 80% of all rare-earth metals sold worldwide.
The Biden administration announced on Tuesday that it would be directly investing millions of dollars in effort to increase domestic production of rare-earth metals, a key component in electric vehicles, most of which is currently produced by China.
The Department of Defense said that it has awarded a $35 million contract to the rare-earth metals company MP Materials, which will go toward building a facility for the production of the metals in California. The company also said that it will invest another $700 million in the project. MP Materials said that 350 jobs in the state would be created in association with the effort.
The Biden administration said in a release the project would eventually establish “a full end-to-end domestic permanent magnet supply chain” and noted China’s control of the production of rare-earth metals, which are used in “EV motors, defense systems, electronics, and wind turbines.”
https://americanindependent.com/joe-biden-rare-earth-metals-electric-cars-us-production-china/